Unix or Linux and Windows hosting: choose your hosting provider

You are finally fully ready to publish a website and you are looking for a suitable hosting provider among affordable service billiards and rate lists. Therefore, you should note that most hosting providers use Linux or Unix operating systems on their web servers. The Microsoft Windows operating system is less frequently offered as an option. So what is the difference?

Most of the people are familiar with Microsoft Windows as it is mainly used for home, work and school editions. It is very simple to use for beginners and does not require any knowledge of console commands. In Windows Home and advanced versions of the server, you just have to open the necessary folder simply by specifying it with the cursor and clicking it with the mouse. Unix and Linux are systems with an open initial code (“open-source” code). This means that they are free and that the source codes are well documented and easily extended. There are no essential differences between Unix and Linux. Unix is ​​much older and is not compatible with x86 personal computers.

By contrast, Linux can run on high-powered servers and regular x86 computers. Linux ships in a wide variety of things, although most hosting companies choose Red Hat Linux or Mandrake Linux, which have proven to be true “workhorses” and are capable of supporting hundreds of sites and millions of hits a day. . Unix produced many popular modifications now known as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, they are widely accessible. While ease of use is very important for a home or work computer, its absence as a whole isn’t much of a problem for a web server. Eventually, you do most of the design on your work computer.

Certainly, if you don’t use any exotic programming system, operation modules, you won’t notice any difference between Windows and Unix servers. Both Linux/Unix and Windows server can easily support highly visited sites and various additions like chat rooms, email and web statistics. The most essential distinction is in the price and compatibility of the software. Since Windows license needs to be obtained and updated regularly, Windows hosting packages are usually more expensive than Unix packages. Also rate lists on the Unix basis often provide free email, databases (MySQL), statistics, scripts. While Windows fee schedules work with Microsoft software (for example, MS SQL), which is also available for money from the hosting provider. Both Linux and Windows can run programs in popular web programming languages ​​like php, perl, or java.

If your site uses active server pages, it will be hosted on Windows server more reliably. It can certainly work on a Unix server as well, but there may be minor glitches that aren’t initially apparent. Again, if you use Microsoft SQL databases, these databases will be supported as part of the Windows hosting packages. In return, Linux or Unix packages often include MySQL in the database structure. This means that your databases will need to be converted to this format for normal operation. If you currently use any of Microsoft’s programming platforms (especially active server pages) or their downstream products (MS SQL 2000), you should stop choosing the Windows hosting package.

For the average web designer, there won’t be a huge difference between Linux/Unix or Windows web hosting. However, before you order web hosting, make sure that all the components of your site (design, programming, databases and everything else) will work in this package. If you have any questions, check with the hosting company’s sales or support department before making a purchase.